The Collected Works. Josephine Tey
“Oh, you’re not staying at Carninnish House?”
No, Grant said; he was staying at the hotel at Garnie, but Mr. Drysdale had very kindly given him permission to fish the Finley for a day or two.
“Are the Garnie people sending for you?”
No, Grant said; he had intended to walk back when he was tired of fishing. It was only four miles or so, and any fish he caught would, of course, be left with Mr. Drysdale.
“It’s very cold work, and disheartening when you’ve got nothing,” said the minister. “Won’t you come in and have a hot cup of tea at the manse? My name is Logan. Tea is between half-past five and six, and it should be ready now.”
Grant thanked him, and tried not to show an indecent degree of joy at the invitation. Fate was playing into his hands. Once inside the manse and it would be for him to call the tune. It was difficult not to bundle his things together, grab the minister by the arm, and run him the half-mile down the river and back to the house. As it was, he packed up with extra deliberation, dawdled at the minister’s pace, which had slackened considerably since the early afternoon, down the track, across the bridge, and along the high road to the front of the manse. As the minister led him down the broad path, cut in stretches of grass to the door, Grant’s heart quickened perceptibly, and for once he did not smile at himself for a weakness. Ten days ago Barker had handed over this case to him, and he had been presented with a handkerchief, a revolver, and a bloodstained knife. Now, at the other end of the kingdom, he was about to come face to face with the man he wanted.
They divested themselves of their coats and hats in the hall, and Grant could hear through the closed door the chatter and clink of people at tea. Then Mr. Logan stepped over to the door and preceded him into the room.
Chapter 12.
CAPTURE
It was a dining-room, and there were three people having tea at the table: an elderly woman with a faint resemblance to Mrs. Everett, a girl with reddish hair and a pale skin, and the Levantine. Grant had time to note them all from behind the minister’s bulk before his host’s making way for him brought him into their view, and he had the exquisite pleasure of seeing his quarry recognize him. For a second Lamont’s eyes widened at him, then the blood rushed to his face and as suddenly receded, leaving it deathly pale. The looker-on in Grant thought how Danny Miller would have sneered at such an exhibition—Danny, who would kill a man and not bother to remember it. The Levantine was certainly an amateur at the game—a murderer by accident more than design, perhaps.
“I have brought you a visitor,” the minister was saying. “This is Mr. Grant. I found him fishing, but catching nothing, so I brought him in to get some hot tea. My sister, Mrs. Dinmont. My niece, Miss Dinmont. And a friend of ours, Mr. Lowe. Now, where will you sit?”
Grant was given a seat beside Miss Dinmont and facing Lamont. Lamont had bowed to him when introduced, but so far gave no sign of ill-meditated action. Either he was paralysed or he was going to take things quietly. And then as he sat down Grant saw the thing that made his heart leap. Lamont’s cup was on the wrong side of his plate. The man was left-handed.
“I am so glad you didn’t wait, Agnes,” Mr. Logan said in a tone which clearly said, I think you might have waited. “It was such a fine evening that I crossed by the swing bridge and came home by the other side of the river.”
“Well, we’re glad you did,” said his niece, “because you’ve brought Mr. Grant, and that makes an uneven number, and so we can put it to the vote. We’ve been having a fight as to whether a mixture of race in a person is a good thing or not. I don’t mean black and white, but just different stocks of white. Mother says that a single-stock person is the best, of course, but that is because she is solid Highland, back to the flood and before. Logans are Maclennans, you know, and there never was a Maclennan who hadn’t a boat of his own. But my father was a Borderer and my grandmother English, and Mr. Lowe’s grandmother was an Italian, so we are very firmly on the other side. Now, Uncle Robert is sure to side with Mother, being a pure-bred Highlander and having in a pure-bred degree all the stubbornness and stinking pride of his race. So we are looking to you for support. Do say that your ancestry is tartan.”
Grant said, quite honestly, that he thought a mixed strain of more value than a pure-bred one. That was, talking of pure-bred as it can exist today. It gave a man a many-sidedness instead of giving him a few qualities in excess, and that was a good thing. It tended to cleverness and versatility, and consequently broad-mindedness and wide sympathies. On the whole, he endorsed Miss Dinmont’s and Mr.—er—Lowe’s point of view.
In view of the lightness of the conversation Grant was astonished at the vehemence and seriousness with which Mr. Logan contradicted him. His race was a fetish with him, and he compared it at length with most of the other nations in western Europe, to their extreme detriment. It was only towards the end of tea that Grant found, to his intense amusement, that Mr. Logan had never been out of Scotland in his life. The despised Lowlanders he had met only during his training for the ministry some thirty years ago, and the other nations he had never known at all. Frustrated in his effort—nobly seconded by Miss Dinmont—to make light conversation, Grant played the part of a Greek chorus to Mr. Logan, and let his thoughts deal with Lamont.
The Levantine was beginning to look a little better. He met Grant’s eyes squarely, and except for the antagonism in his own, there was nothing remarkable about him. He made no attempt to hide the small scar on his thumb, though he must have known, as he knew about his telltale cup, that it was damning evidence. He had evidently decided that the game was up. It remained to be seen, though, whether he would come quietly when the time came. At least Grant was glad to see that flicker of antagonism in his eyes. It is an unlovely job to arrest a craven. A police officer would much sooner be hacked on the shins than clasped about the knees. There would quite obviously be no knee-clasping on this occasion.
One thing caused Grant’s heart to harden against the man: the strides he seemed to have made in Miss Dinmont’s regard in the three days of his stay. Even yet his quick smile came out to answer hers, and his eyes sought hers oftener than those of any one else at table. Miss Dinmont looked a girl who would be quite able to take care of herself—she had all a red-haired person’s shrewdness and capability—but that did not excuse Lamont’s lack of decent feeling. Had he merely been preparing an ally? A man on the run for murder does not usually have the spare interest for love-making—more especially if he is an amateur in crime. It was a blatant and heartless piece of opportunism. Well, he should have no chance of appealing to his ally; Grant would see to that. Meanwhile he kept his place in the conversation, and did justice to the fried trout which was the pièce de résistance of five-thirty tea at the manse. The Levantine ate, too, and Grant caught himself wondering what degree of effort was required to swallow each of these mouthfuls. Did he care, or had he got past that? Was his impudent “Don’t you think so, Mr. Grant?” a bluff or the real thing? His hands were quite steady—that thin, dark left hand that had put an end to his friend’s life—and he did not shirk his part in the conversation. There was obviously to the others no difference between the man who sat there now and the man who had sat there at lunch. The Levantine was doing it well.
At the end of tea, when they began to smoke, Grant offered Miss Dinmont a cigarette, and she raised her eyebrows in mock horror.
“My dear man,” she said, “this is a Highland manse. If you like to come out and sit on a stone by the river, I’ll have one, but not under this roof.”
The “under this roof” was obviously a quotation, but her uncle pretended not to hear.
“There’s nothing I’d like better,” Grant said, “but it’s getting late, and as I am walking to Garnie, I think I’d better start. I’m so grateful to you all for the good ending to my day. Perhaps Mr. Lowe would walk a bit of the way with me? It’s early yet, and very fine.”
“Certainly,”